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BETWEEN TIME
JEAN FOLAN ————————————
Belfast Lapwing
BETWEEN TIME
JEAN FOLAN
Belfast LAPWING
First Published by Lapwing Publications c/o 1, Ballysillan Drive Belfast BT14 8HQ lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com www.lapwingpoetry.com Copyright Š Jean Folan 2013 All rights reserved The author has asserted her/his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Since before 1632 the Greig sept of the MacGregor Clan has been printing and binding books
All Lapwing Publications are printed and hand-bound in Belfast. Set in Aldine 721 BT at the Winepress
ISBN 978-1-909252-26-4 ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to the editors of the following publications in which some of the poems were published: West 47, Cúirt Annual 2007, Crannóg, Revival, Trácht Magazine, Network Magazine, Mid Life Slices Anthology, The Galway Review, Ropes. Some of the poems were recorded in Poet’s Breakfast, a CD from Kinvara 2009. Jean thanks the poets, workshop facilitators and participants, friends and family in Kinvara, Oranmore, Galway, Sligo, Mayo and further afield who have given her great encouragement.
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CONTENTS ..................... .................... YOUR SIDE OF THE WARDROBE . . . . . MY GRIEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . COTTAGE ROSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BRIAR ROSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ORPHEUS IN GALWAY . . . . . . . . . . . . LOVE IN FREE VERSE . . . . . . . . . . . . ABSENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BETWEEN TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NIGHT AND DAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DAY AND NIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE KEEPER OF THE FLAME . . . . . . . FACE TO FACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SHOPPING 1958 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MANTRA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE BOGEYMAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AT SIXTY
KILLANIN
THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY
...................... ................... DOORMAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A PAIR OF NECKLACES . . . . . . . . . . . ALCHEMY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONFESSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A SOLDIER’S REINCARNATION . . . . . . AT THE ASYLUM WINDOW . . . . . . . . NIMMO’S PIER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NO! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FATHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ADVICE TO THE WOMAN . . . . . . . . . . THE WOMAN I WAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . BYPASS
NO ESCAPE
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7 8 8 9 10 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 23 24 25 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
........................ ............. DOWN AT CUSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BURREN VIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHISPER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . QUICKSILVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ONE QUESTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAYTHORN PISEOG . . . . . . . . . . . . . NO SAT NAV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LIVE NOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE PILGRIM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE KITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EASTER, INISHCRONE . . . . . . . . . . . . GOD’S PROMISE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE SALMON WEIR BRIDGE . . . . . . . BACK TO SCHOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DREAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NEXT DOOR .................. MEMORIES OF MINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . LOOKIN’ ATCHYA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE INNER FIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SURPRISE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TARIFA WINDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THERE IN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A NEED BEGETS A SOURCE . . . . . . . . NEW YEAR WISH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DATING NEFERTITI . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONVERTIBLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHRONICLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEVEN HAIKU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BLUE
MARTELLO TOWER
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34 35 36 37 37 38 39 40 41 41 42 43 44 44 45 46 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 58 60 62
For Enda and Ross
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Jean Folan
AT SIXTY Forty years from now I will choose no cake or candle but will step through a door and head back up the hill. I will bounce and bob along with the freedom of a child. My fingers will clasp one hundred white strings and with outstretched arms I will hold aloft a canopy of rainbow hued balloons. I will gift them year by year to whoever I encounter. I will feel radiant while the red balloon buried in my present pulsates.
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Between Time
KILLANIN On a July night we took a shortcut, a graveyard stroll among plastic flowers. Jokes about longevity, and I asked where you, ‘being American’, would like to be buried? ‘Bury me in Killanin. I’ll be looking up at you.’ On an October day I followed the hearse, no stroll, no jokes, real flowers. I laid you to rest alone in a double plot. They say one should not talk about it, but I am glad we had that talk though I never felt you looking up at me.
YOUR SIDE OF THE WARDROBE I cull dust from emptiness, palm specks, stare at years of loneliness. I spill tears that moisten motes of memory, wash our time in drops that shine. 8
Jean Folan
MY GRIEF is like a currach stranded on shore, a black hood of despair, hoisted on shoulders, marched to the sea with six feet under. Dropped in the shallows I struggle to board. Launched to the waves, oars stiffen and moan. Exposed to the storm, tarred canvas creaks, raw ribs heave, joists shudder, tholepins squeal ‘Surrender!’ I scream ‘Never’! A six oar symphony crests wave after wave. In the light of dawn a calm ocean shimmers, tired arms reach out for the distant shore. 9
Between Time
COTTAGE ROSE The white porcelain vase holds a fresh cottage rose picked by your loving hands. Stunned I grasp shadows caress absence roll rigid in emptiness. I wilt through dawns of remembered embrace, while pink petals drop.
BRIAR ROSE Do not be afraid of thorns, stretch out beneath my canopy, I am your tangled mass of sorrow, a haven for your cowering form. I let moonlight lace your skin. Leave these dark winter nights, touch my spring growth, smell the summer scent of delicate briar rose. Leave me by the wayside. 10
Jean Folan
ORPHEUS IN GALWAY He is the handsome swan from the Claddagh Basin who follows the night time lure of a breadcrumb trail. This time, he does not look back. Seized by underworld thugs he lies, neck trice twisted, spiritless on the morning grass. On nearby Corrib waters, his mate, mute, drifts with two cygnets, Euridyce abandoned.
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Between Time
LOVE IN FREE VERSE Would that I could pen you the perfect love poem, a graceful sonnet, romantic, å la Shakespeare. My fingers seek the keys to heart-shaped words, yours linger still, caress my entire being. Rhyme love with dove above. Facile. Pentameter, we shared five years. I am. Try rhythm, two hearts in unison, mine flutters, yours ceased in fibrillation. Plagiarise, love’s labour is never lost. Love in free verse. We are the perfect couplet: uncoupled.
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Jean Folan
ABSENCE I enter the woods haunted by the absence of your presence. Sunlight filters on summer leaves falling to earth. I caress a leaf on my doubting palm, retrace a final journey. The life this form embodied has not departed. The breath of life that cradled this leaf on its descent embraced your soul on its ascent. I leave these woods lightened by the Presence in your absence.
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Between Time
BETWEEN TIME When the ebb tide turns to flow and the past kisses the future: Be glad. When the in-breath meets the out-breath and inspiration ticks between the tocks: Be happy. When the pendulum reaches the nadir and this now of being balances the interlude of existence: Give thanks.
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Jean Folan
NIGHT AND DAY When grey night stirs from the river Lethe, she dances with the day. By twilight they couple on the edge of the horizon. Last kiss stolen, he departs in crimson. Blind in the duvet of the universe she sees no planets or sequinned stars. Her chiffon gown shades all in silhouette while in the cratered moon his light reflects. Through nine full rounds her rotund belly swells and in the curse of time she births another dawn. Morning cradles the day while night steals away. They cycle through perpetual incarnations for life’s ultimate consummation.
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Between Time
DAY AND NIGHT Day flirts with night by twilight. He scarpers. In darkness she births the dawn. His return. They curse: we’ve been here before. They whisper: about some ultimate consummation. Bloody Hell!
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Jean Folan
THE KEEPER OF THE FLAME In the lighthouse of the universe the keeper of the flame stokes the furnace of creation. In the lighthouse of mankind the keeper of the flame sets down the ember of incarnation. In the lighthouse of emotion the keeper of the flame trims the wick of illusion. In the lighthouse of the mind the keeper of the flame kindles the light of illumination. In the lighthouse of the soul the keeper of the flame pours forth the spark of intuition. In the lighthouse of the spirit the keeper of the flame withdraws the ember to liberation. 17
Between Time
FACE TO FACE An heirloom chosen fifteen years and five house moves ago, stands high up on the shelf, dust gatherer, stopped sometime between a tick and a tock. Staring at the clock, I stray into it, become the face with hands of time. I recall her ritual of loving care, the way she prised the glass door to teach me in correct sequence, key insertion, turn, just so tight. Each week she wound three springs of tension, love, release. Now, mother and daughter hands face nine the number of completion.
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Jean Folan
SHOPPING 1958 I see her gloved hand grasp the brass handle, open the door with a jingle jangle. Dark parquet floors, brown polished smells, menswear stacked high on mahogany shelves. A young man greets with a smile, enquires of her needs. ‘Wait just a while!’ Nylon shirts scatter over the counter, she likes the blue, ‘Size sixteen will do.’ I bounce on my toes and tug at her sleeve, she delves in her purse, ‘You promised me. Please?’ In the shiny container, I struggle to place a pound note bearing a green lady’s face. He pulls down a cord and away it whirrs, a silver bird skimming on circus wires. We wait: they talk about Christmas dinner. A mechanical screech, my ‘bird’ is the winner. He unscrews the lid, gives mum a pink page. My five year old fingers grasp at the change. She smiles at me, tells me I’m funny. ‘For luck,’ says she and shoves me a penny.
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Between Time
MANTRA In St. Joseph’s Ward footsteps squeak, monitors beep, drips drop, my child sleeps. I witness another mother nestle a black bobbed little one who sobs all night long. “I want to go home. Now!” She screams “I want to go home. Now!” Her cries reverberate through the children’s ward. Maybe she wants to be where her father and brother sleep, her toys lie idle, the dog snores, and dreams fluff her pillow. “I want to go home. Now!” Her refrain becomes my mantra.
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Jean Folan
THE BOGEYMAN Shivery whisper, ‘you ’sleep yet?’ No reply. Creep on squeaky floor, tweak curtain a fraction, slide one eye to the gap. He lurks, beyond the barbed wire fence. Wide brimmed black hat and dark cloak, the man on the Sandeman Bottle. I peek. He stares, dares me to emerge. I duck and scamper. Head under pillow. A whisper, ‘did you see ’im?’ This time it is I who cannot reply.
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Between Time
THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY is a film I will not see. I will not view my mother’s terror. I will not watch her mother’s pain as brother fights brother. I will not observe the hated Black and Tans ransack for weapons. I see all too well a petrified girl torn from bed.
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Jean Folan
BYPASS When my adolescence bloomed, you raped and robbed me of an irredeemable innocence. Now I see you captive on a cardiac bypass waiting for the carnage that might liberate you. I forgave you; however, not enough to donate you my teenage son’s heart, if he were to die.
NO ESCAPE She morphs into the solidity of closed doors, watches both sides, her secret safe until manhandled, slammed, kicked, punched through, unhinged, collapsed, she lies broken on the floor. No hiding place, bruises never lie. 23
Between Time
DOORMAT Hobnail boots, spรกgs and dogs scrape and straddle the grimy mat. Frayed edges, rotten core, Shake it! What the hell! Beat the crap on wailing walls. Hurl the shreds at dreaded ghosts. Stir dust memories, save an earring, find the diamond, spare the key. Dance on the stoop! Conjure a golden mat with swathes that welcome.
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Jean Folan
A PAIR OF NECKLACES I loved the first, a golden torc with crescent moons placed with gentle hands. His fingerpads lingered, brushed my delicate skin. The second, I wish to forget. A tight black band, clamped hands, fingertips crushing, I struggled. Do bruises still colour my neck? He claimed it was a dream but it was my nightmare when the torc of love became the black choker.
ALCHEMY Inhale the light of love, ignite embers of anger, awaken shards of fury. In an alchemy exhale the flames, light the anger with love. 25
Between Time
CONFESSION I am the toddler who pulls your hair in the preschool playground. I am the brat who trips you up on the way to school each day. I am the lad with all the power who tells you who to befriend. I am the teen who texts you late with threats of who to hate. I am the brute who beats you behind fully drawn curtains. I am the sod who gets his way in the family of tradition. I am a bastard of a bully, this I know, but I am still a toddler, afraid.
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Jean Folan
A SOLDIER’S REINCARNATION When he swung the sword, a medieval suit of armour split. He exulted as his victim died. His weapon withdrawn, a silver helmet rolled, his sister’s head exposed. Now, the enemy lurks within. Armourless, he tries to flee, frozen, he writhes in agony. He feels cold steel enter, sear tissues raw. This wound oozes ragged emotion. Ancient arachnoid adhesions stretch, spin time, thread the delicate zone. He surrenders, seeks her forgiveness, pleads across centuries.
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Between Time
AT THE ASYLUM WINDOW I scratch with bitten nails, form circles on the pane, lay outstretched palms on cold condensation. I breathe warm air patterns, plant kisses on grey glass, leave lonely lip prints on my reflection. I trace leafless branches. By night I tap-tap-tap the upper left corner, count stars, lose track when they shoot. I live on the sill, wait for someone, anyone, to release the catch.
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Jean Folan
NIMMO’S PIER Missing loved ones last seen mesmerised on novena clad bridges. Night drops to oblivion. In Corrib waters tears and fears drown in torrents wrenched baywards. Silent screams echo the stigma past Nimmo’s.
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Between Time
NO! There was a time when I could not say no preyed upon little girl time. There was a time when I should have said no young adult must please time. Now is the time when I choose to say no! No! Nein! Nyet time!
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Jean Folan
FATHER You showed me the universe at the top of your finger when Sputnik passed over our house. You showed me the earth with the turn of a dial, an EI6W call on your ham radio. You showed me spirit at the tip of a baton when you played music all night long. You showed me love when you tickled my ribs and called me Tyger. You never saw an endangered cub. Father, you did not protect me.
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Between Time
ADVICE TO THE WOMAN Based on ‘Equality Emerging’ by John Behan, a sculpture at Salmon Weir Bridge, Galway.
There you are poised in emergence or caught in retreat, perhaps in balance breaking through the toughened ceiling of glass. Before you breach that particular barrier remember it could be a fragile glass floor which might shatter under the weight of your expectation.
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Jean Folan
THE WOMAN I WAS hid in the base of a round tower, never let down her short black hair, always hit the mythical wall, never finished the marathon, wavered on the cliff top edge, did not see three seagulls soar, strode the university quadrangle, then ripped up the mortarboard. The woman I was, dreamt of being the woman I am.
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Between Time
BLUE Based on ‘A Person at the Window’ by Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali says I am beautiful brushing my cheek with paint-filled fingers. Wear a blue dress, my Sunday best. He paints blue sea, blue sky, blue me. But he paints my back, blue back in a window. I study the view and hear him shuffle. I am only sixteen. Mama knits in the corner. She chaperones and flirts. I’ve seen their reflections. Today I asked him the title of this painting. ‘A Person at the Window.’ A person! Indeed! Enough of blue. I will turn and tell him he must name this picture ‘Maria at the Window.’
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Jean Folan
MARTELLO TOWER Crawl within Martello walls, heart thumping drowns out winds, smothers ocean swells. Cling to deep crevices, edge suction cups upward a gecko reading Braille. Emerge to a night sky scattered with silica thrown from the crumbling sandcastle. At dawn, a marshmallow melts in the sunrise. The gecko blinks.
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Between Time
DOWN AT CUSH She hovers to the East just above Slieve Aughty. Her yellow Van Gogh smile shimmers on Aughinish Bay. He is regal in the West cresting Roundstone Hill, tossing a velvet cloak over the Martello on the causeway down at Cush. I stand with outstretched arms where the full tide laps both shores. Right hand caresses the Moon Goddess tresses. Left hand stretches for the Sun God’s crimson stream on the causeway down at Cush. He kisses the horizon and bids us both good night. She swells in full reflection of his glorious light. Colours blend and kindle an amber glow in my heart at the full moon in Leo on the causeway down at Cush.
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Jean Folan
BURREN VIEW Where celestial blue greys the limestone plateau three goats face east etched still as indigo. Do they graze for Burren succulence? Do they search midnight skies for Capricorn? Do they sense earth bound souls in transcendence? Shadows of dolmens they embrace a mystery. Goatway to Heaven reflects the Trinity.
WHISPER Forty geese from Burren shores veer north in February formation, a black frieze undulating under an incandescent full moon rising. Twilight wings whisper on Galway Bay heralding spring migrations, with honkings of Boreal gaggles promise laden with eggs goose golden. 37
Between Time
QUICKSILVER “All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.” Kabir
Full tide, Galway Bay smooth as mercury. Miniscule ebb and flow on limestone shale. She rests replete. Contrast with tsunami waves. World Aid a clichéd drop in the ocean. On this calm night the ocean in this drop of quicksilver could save millions.
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Jean Folan
ONE QUESTION Gaia, you weep from melting ice-caps, shed warm tears that fill oceans and submerge plains. Waves imprison your tsunami rage, your dark eyes bulge in hurricanes while shifting sands smother your cry. Blind humanity, polyethylened in greed, backpacks loaded, seeks safer ground, dead to pangs of self-destruction. Mother, as you rebirth this planet, forgive us, we will repent but do we have time to change?
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Between Time
MAYTHORN PISEOG For a few weeks in May cream and pink whitethorn scattered through hedgerows and gorse filled fields look like á la carte first communicants with a few blushing brides as they parade before the jaundiced eye of a prickly clergy. Some thorn trees, sculpted by westerly winds, bow to the east tilt at silver windmills. Others, solitary, route markers through the fairy realm. Scented blossoms with five petal perfection flourish on triple stems and thorny branches. Pity about the piseog that states the Maythorn is ‘bad luck to bring in the house.’
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Jean Folan
NO SAT NAV Can it be seen without vellum or computer screen? Is it in the pattern of a seagull’s flight, or a snail’s silver trail at the setting of night? Count petals on a flower or hold a crystal light. Seek these other signs, there may be no sat nav, no Google Earth to click on the pilgrimage of life.
LIVE NOW Leap from life’s bridge. Soar to blue sky play, ride E.T.’s bike, feel the fiery finger torch dormant love. Toss the lunar disc, follow it to the sun. Pause on heaven’s bridge. Shimmer down a rainbow. 41
Between Time
THE PILGRIM Speeding nowhere in a passage through life I see a God tread the road to Galway. He walks alone, long wooden staff in hand as he journeys to the end of his earth. His grey beard bounces on a blue denim robe as if wrapped in a patchwork of heaven. Bespectacled and with a sky blue beret he bears the aura of a saintly man who quietly arouses ancient echoes of pilgrimage ways onto sacred sites. For the few seconds it takes to drive past in this millennium driven by stress, his pilgrim presence touches my progress.
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Jean Folan
THE KITE On the beach at Nye,1 the Pacific Ocean surfs from sunset to the silver strand. The kite soars, clad lightly in white, tail billowing, dark arms outstretched in crucifixion. She plummets in sudden submission and confident hands pull the cord to resurrection to hold the wind in free harmony. On the beach at Nye, His hands hold the silver strand that flies my cross high on the kite of life.
1
Oregon
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Between Time
EASTER, INISHCRONE From the edge of Killala Bay the setting sun spills abundance. In shiny shallows the mirrored sphere skims promises to the Diamond Valley. Both orbs weave golden skeins and silver threads into a cruciform seaborne tapestry.
GOD’S PROMISE For Enda
The Bellawaddy river swollen from last night’s storm tumbles past wading gulls. Offshore winds stir foaming waves and ponies frolic in the shallows on the beach at Inishcrone. Walkers pause as morning light spills a double rainbow from Bartragh to The Point. Embraced in the calm water outback a trio of teenage surfers, perched like seals, eye the swell. 44
Jean Folan
THE SALMON WEIR BRIDGE As a child I peeped through parapets, saw magical fish jump in Corrib waters. Like Fionn, seeking to gain all knowledge, I stretched to touch the glistening scales. Mother admonished me against silliness and danger. Recurrent nightmares of suspension over bridgeless waters and panic drownings. In time, childhood wonder resurfaced. I lean over the parapet, I leap with the salmon.
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Between Time
BACK TO SCHOOL For Ross
As growing arms stretch tightly round my waist a cheek lies snug against my breast and when I bow to kiss your crown the morning light spins a myriad of dancing rainbows sprinkling strands of short brown hair with promise.
DREAM Crowded room, burnished curls, freckled face, our eyes engage. ‘I am your Guardian Angel.’ ‘But you could be just anybody.’ ‘Precisely.’ 46
Jean Folan
NEXT DOOR is a blind, mute and headless place: flat roof, boarded front, backdoor ajar, rusted cans, peeling paint, magnolia walls, red doors, broken springs, horsehair mattress, ragged shirts, cut throat razor, cracked mirror, shaving brush, hairbrush, filthy loo brush, dingy dresser, chipped cups, broken plates, mouldy table, mouse shit, bakelite phone, bleeding heart picture, fallen lady statue, blue beads, tattered lace, bare bulbs, wet webs, warped floors, dusty weeds, sturdy saplings, skylit rafters, swallows. My neighbours on the other side have a new baby.
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Between Time
MEMORIES OF MINT I sip mint tea, watch steam unfurl: Moroccan sands by nightfall, I sway to a primitive drumbeat with Tourareg men in white robes; the smooth flow of translucent green liqueur, soothing my tongue, slipping south on college dates; the cough and splutter of cigarettes, a mentholated sophistication clasped in my teenage hand; ‘Let’s get some mint.’ Mum crushes a nettly green leaf on her palm and holds it to my little face, she shows me how, I scrunch my nose, sniff a smell, one with no antecedent.
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Jean Folan
LOOKIN’ ATCHYA The perfect fried egg has a yolk bang in the centre and the white spreads slowly out. Such an egg can be blind or lookin’ atchya. Supposin’ the fried egg has the white in the middle surrounded by the yella’, would such an egg be blind and never lookin’ atchya? Were you to rise one day and see the sun’s radiance centred in a golden halo, it would not really matter for you would indeed be blind and it still lookin’ atchya!
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Between Time
THE INNER FIGHT Seconds out! Muscles that jabbed and stung like a bee, now tremble in rigidity. Feet that danced like Lepidoptera slow shuffle with Parkinsonia. Ali once rumbled in the jungle, now he fumbles without a grumble. That velvet voice spoke with such tenacity, whispers now – a personal veracity. Eyes, which pierced an opponent’s gaze, radiate from his unblemished face.
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Jean Folan
SURPRISE A string of thoughts, Chinese lanterns. One piece, two ends tightrope variations. Tied to the past shaking entanglement. Strung to the future knotted possibilities. Poised in the present weave heart strings. Cut loose ends, wrap the surprise. Fluff the bow. Celebration! Angels play string games too.
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Between Time
TARIFA WINDS I am Levante the sunrise wind. Listen to me roar through the Straits. I gust from the East, bellow on crazy minds, sweep all before me, destroy and cleanse. At sunset when I blow gently from the West and caress the ocean you call me Poniente.
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Jean Folan
THERE IN It is… Or It is not… A Truth Lies Therein Is it In the Polarisation Of Opposites Or Is it In the Harmonisation Of Dualities Therein Lies a Truth Is it… Or Is it not… There In Reality?
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Between Time
A NEED BEGETS A SOURCE The source begets the outflow the outflow needs a source. Rivers need a spring the spring begets the river. The daffodil needs a bulb the bulb begets the daffodil. The child needs a mother the mother begets the child. The light needs the sun the sun begets the light. Death needs a life life begets the death. The effect needs a cause the cause begets the effect. A need begets a source.
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Jean Folan
NEW YEAR WISH If the new year is considering a gift I should like it to be: a year when the seasons pass through their glory and the earth heals from incessant plunder; a year where the sun shines on my children’s days and fluffed pillows hold their dreams; a year when the dissonant orchestra of my emotions become the soothing of a lullaby; a year of stability where I can find my roots and quell the mental train of inconsequential natter; a year where I can give without thought the loving hug, the life-filled smile. Let the year lead me to a peaceful acceptance of myself, a year unlike any other.
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Between Time
DATING NEFERTITI (Queen Nefertiti, beautiful wife of Pharaoh Akenaten 1353-1337BC)
The boy from Kingston walked me home from school and shared his big secret: how to steal from mother’s purse. Good job Bugsy went to the Jes after second class in Scoil Fhursa. The teen at the Tennis Club Hop never saw me in the crowd. I wore the powder blue, A-line, long sleeved cotton dress, hand sewn for the Inter Cert. He was the handsome swimmer whose photo I saved from the Connacht Tribune to share as my pretend boyfriend through long dormitory nights. The student at the dance in Seapoint; black hair, black polo, black pants, shared white polo-mints, became the man of repeated farewells. Too many years just goin’ out. We met white-water rafting in Oregon, engaged on the shores of Galway Bay. Five years, two boys, love, honour, then death’s sudden intervention: you rest beneath heather in Killanin.
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Jean Folan
Like others I seek on the internet, in dating agencies, newspaper columns, Knock or even Lisdoonvarna in September. How to meet remains the conundrum. I am she who creates another profile on the universal wide web. My Akenaten will materialise. I am Nefertiti.
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CONVERTIBLE This Jean is really normal, not flamboyant or formal. A quiet unassuming regular Irish girl. On a Californian holiday she went to rent an auto, a basic model would do for Jean plus two. ‘We have none left,’ the lady said. Her eyes fell in dismay, ‘But how about a convertible to see you on your way.’ She sat into the sports car, somewhat overwhelmed, white body, black top, (the car now, not our friend). That night in Hollywood, she stretched out in the back. The roof was down, the sky was clear, her boys were right beside her. This is fun they all agreed, she laughed and laughed again, ‘I want to be a movie star let’s drive on Sunset Boulevard.’ Now, in the act of being driven, this normal Jean was changing. Her hands moved to her hair, she fluffed it in the breeze.
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Jean Folan
It had grown blonde and longer and she revelled as she teased. The red scarf on her neck flew back with true abandon. Her makeup looking good? Red lipstick full of gloss. She preened and gazed and drew adoring looks. Then in dulcet tones she uttered, ‘Oh! My gawd! I am experiencing a Marilyn moment.’ For yes, it is true, the spirit of Norma Jean transformed an Irish lass in Hollywood that night. She returned the sporty auto but wonders to this day if only she alone knows its strange convertible way. And the moral of this tale is: just grasp those Marilyn moments, for one lives still in the memory of this now not quite so normal Jean.
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CHRONICLE My baby eyes so blue I am emerging and being. My child eyes so gentle I am sleeping and scared. My teenage eyes so deep I am seeking and abused. My twenties eyes so confident I am trusting and betrayed. My thirties eyes so happy I am loving and loved. My forties eyes so sad I am crying and bereaved.
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My maternal eyes so caring I am struggling and afraid. My fifties eyes so pained I am searching and confused. My sixties eyes so joyful I am forgiving and healed.
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SEVEN HAIKU Transfixed by shore’s edge symmetrical reflection heron hieroglyph Bright yellow petals heads nodding nonchalantly cowslips in prayer Bare winter whitethorn bleeds black plastic prayer flags baleful pollution Black suited children jump, dive, splash like wet seal pups Blackrock in summer Bluebells in Coole beds under a green canopy ladies-in-waiting Thought fields resonate through the no man’s land of mind understanding grows Limestone walls stacked like minutes filtering seconds into timelessness
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JEAN FOLAN
Jean Folan was born in Galway in 1951. She lives in Inishcrone, Co Sligo and is enrolled on the MA in Writing in NUI Galway. Between Time is her first collection of poems. Jean Folan was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Prize 2007, and the Over the Edge Showcase 2008, and was a featured reader at Over the Edge 2007. She was the winner of the Impromptu Haiku, Culture Night 2010, Ballina Arts Centre, Co. Mayo and runner-up at Culture Night 2012, Kenny’s Bookshop, Galway.
The Lapwing is a bird, in Irish lore - so it has been written indicative of hope. Printed by Kestrel Print Hand-bound at the Winepress, Ireland
ISBN 978-1-909252-26-4
£10.00